This is one of those thought provoking dramas that might take a few viewings to completely understand. Like many movies on travel, it's got a huge ensemble, but there's only one major plot and no smaller ones to get in the way. The ensemble is mostly little snippets of the interactions of other passengers intermingling with the three important characters (Matheson Lang, Constance Cummings and Anthony Bushell) here and there and react to issues occurring on the voyage from England to the mainland. It's fascinating, if slow in spots, and for those only familiar with British films through Hitchcock, this is an interesting example of their place in cinema during the dawn of the golden age.
Fans of classic movies will instantly recognize Nigel Bruce and Edmund Gwenn, with Bruce playing an older man divorcing his much younger wife (also on board) and hoping to himself obviously that she falls overboard. Lang, like Sydney Greenstreet in the 1940's and Orson Welles in the 1950's, is the gregarious fat man with an agenda, seeming a bit too interested in his secretary (Cummings) and hateful of her beau (Bushell). The film get a little talky here and there and some of the British cultural references might confuse American audiences, not to mention modern British audiences through changing times. But as I've noticed for years, British cinema seemed to advance technically faster than American movies did, and this film pretty much proves it.
Fans of classic movies will instantly recognize Nigel Bruce and Edmund Gwenn, with Bruce playing an older man divorcing his much younger wife (also on board) and hoping to himself obviously that she falls overboard. Lang, like Sydney Greenstreet in the 1940's and Orson Welles in the 1950's, is the gregarious fat man with an agenda, seeming a bit too interested in his secretary (Cummings) and hateful of her beau (Bushell). The film get a little talky here and there and some of the British cultural references might confuse American audiences, not to mention modern British audiences through changing times. But as I've noticed for years, British cinema seemed to advance technically faster than American movies did, and this film pretty much proves it.